Dangan Ronpa: Hello Despair
by CattheLion
Summary: The summary of the Dangan Ronpa plot is simply despair. Yet there was a time before that, when savage parental beatings and cruel heartbreak looked tame. We can look into the past, and then see what becomes of it. Major spoilers for SDR2, major character death. Trigger warnings noted in AN. Ensemble cast, focus on SDR2.
1. Chapter 1: Welcome to the Academy

**AN: This is a Dangan Ronpa fanfiction that spans from pre-despair to post-SDR2. It focuses on the SDR2 characters, and is full ensemble.  
Unless explicitly stated otherwise, these events are original; of my own conception. Although I have used some creative license in characterisation, plot and etc., first and foremost Dangan Ronpa and all related content is the property of Spike Chunsoft.  
This story deals with a lot of harsh material. It has been rated M, but reader discretion is advised.  
Forseeable triggers:  
\- Gore and violence (gun and blade crime)  
\- Graphic descriptions  
\- Sexual abuse, rape  
\- Ableist/transphobic/homophobic/mysogynist slurs (Author is neurodivergent genderfluid pan ace)  
\- Normalised abuse in domestic and romantic situations  
\- Eating disorders  
\- Psychological horror, brainwashing, etc.  
\- Heavy themes of murder and torture  
\- Necrophillia and extreme body disfgurement  
\- Suicide and self harm**

**Constructive critisism welcome.**

**To start, let's have a relatively fluffy (by comparison) first few chapters.**

Hope's Peak Academy was peaceful at the moment; all students and most staff were in lessons, leaving only skivers and off-duty teachers to loiter about the halls. Today, however, the headmaster was out of his office and with two second year pupils: the Ultimate Archer, Yasu Sato, and a new student.

Headmaster Jin Kirigiri left the pair alone, with a firm handshake and words of comfort that the new student would be taken good care of. In the professional yet easy-going manner that he had been treating the new boy with for the past half hour, he strode back down the corridor that led to his office.

Yasu Sato brushed her dark hair out of her eyes and regarded the newcomer sternly, causing him to wilt under her glare. She thrust her hand out.  
"Good afternoon. As Headmaster Kirigiri told you, my name his Yasu Sato. Pleased to meet you." Her tone was clipped, and the new boy guessed that she wasn't one to mince words.

He took her hand and gave it a firm shake, refusing to be intimidated by the first classmate he met. "I'm Hajime Hinata."

As soon as he had introduced himself, Sato promptly terminated the handshake, and turned on her heel. She looked back at him.  
"Headmaster Kirigiri has already shown you around some places, mmm?" Hajime stuttered his answer.  
"Um, yeah, he showed me around the classrooms."  
"You haven't seen the dorm areas?"  
"No, not yet."  
"Well, come on then."

As hard as he tried to keep up with Sato, the haughty girl would always see him lengthening his strides and speed up.

His questions were met with closed, brief answers that answered the question but left a lot unsaid.  
"So…what's your talent?"  
"I'm an archer."  
"How long have you been doing that for?"  
"Mmm. Few years."  
"Were…you the one to get entered for the Japanese Olympic team?"  
"Mmhm." She cut in front again. Hajime contented himself with watching the swinging hips, answering with his own hums of reply as she pointed out a sweeping cafeteria with a checkered floor, and other key features such as the dorm rooms for other year groups. From the corridors, a group of five loitered aimlessly around a small pack of cigarettes. Hajime vaguely recognised the bright orange hair of a baseball star named Leon, and the knot in his stomach tightened as he remembered that Leon Kuwata actually _deserved _to be here; he actually had a talent for something. Hajime supposed that his baseball skills were enough to warrant Kuwata skipping his classes.

Hajime's presence in the corridor was just as needless as the scowl a small girl threw him, before turning around again into the huddle.

Sato threw the back of the girl's head a filthy look, muttering something under her breath in a contemptuous tone.  
"Who's she?" Hajime asked, not realising that his voice had softened, so as to avoid the blonde hearing. Sato caught his eye and sped up purposefully, gesturing for Hajime to do the same.

A few paces later, and they had arrived at a flight of stairs. Sato spat something out of her mouth: a piece of bubble gum.  
"Only the biggest _bitch _in the school. There's some Hiyoko girl in our year group, another midget blondie, but the crap she pulls is kid stuff compared to what _she _does."  
"Oh. What's her name?"  
"She's…Natsuhime Kuzuryuu."  
Hajime gawped at her.  
"K-Kuzuryuu? As in…?"  
"The famous yakuzas, yes…her…brother's here too."  
Hajime felt himself go pale, and weak at the knees.  
"Can…can we walk and talk?"

Detailing occasions of broken arms and bloody noses, Sato recounted all of the deeds done by the Kuzuryuu siblings.  
"She's also bullying one of my friends...I think."  
"That must be hard to deal with."  
"Yeah…I want to have a word with them both about it."  
Sato gave a brief, nonchalant introduction to the corridor that housed their dorm rooms.  
"We sleep here, hang out here. The usual stuff."  
"It's…it's like a fancy hotel or something."  
Sato gave him a wry smile. "Mmmm. Just don't be expecting hot tubs or anything, mmhm?"

Hajime replied with an awkward laugh, before trailing off and looking left and right at the two doors that faced him.  
"Boy's is on the right."  
He nodded, abashed, and rattled the door knob as he turned it, to no avail. Frustrated, he bit his lip and looked back at Sato.

She tried her luck.  
"I'm sure that one of the boys mentioned it being broken. A few of the doors here have ill-fitting frames…" she suddenly had an idea. "Mmmm…a bit like the Science rooms."  
She twisted the knob again, this time heaving the heavy door up.  
"That's an inconvenience, for sure." Hinata commented, walking into the new corridor.  
"So which one's my room?"  
"Check your handbook."  
The cover slid open, and the screen blinked on. Sato peered over his shoulder and gestured to a button.  
"Press that one."  
A map of the floor expanded, and Hajime instinctively pinched the screen to expand the image.  
"Is that…is that a _chibi _version of myself?"  
"Yes. We all have one."  
"That's a little insulting."  
"At least they made yours _look _like you, ahoge and all." She crossed her arms. "Mine looks nothing like me. They gave it some big knockers and called it a day."  
"Well…that is to say…"  
"…Mmmhm?"

Using the key that Headmaster Kirigiri had given him, Hajime unlocked the door- thankfully, with no issues.

The first impression that he had of his room was that the door immediately hit something behind it. Confused, Hajime looked behind the door and saw that a treadmill was blocking his way.  
"Do…do we get a complimentary treadmill?" He stammered.

Yasu raised her eyebrows in surprise, and looked behind the door.  
"Um…no…you don't get a complimentary treadmill, Hajime." She recoiled in horror upon looking into the rest of the room. "Wow…boys are so _messy_."  
Hajime glanced into the rest of the room, and did a double take.  
"I…I…"  
"The rest of your housemates! They've left all of their old junk in here!" Sato snapped crossly, wading through skipping ropes and training cones.  
Although he wasn't exactly pleased at the mess he'd been left, Hajime couldn't help but give the treadmill a pat.  
_So…my roommates left all this here? Hm. I wonder what kind of people they are, judging by all this._

Sato picked up a magazine by the corner of the page, grimacing as the contents flipped open. "Teruteru, I'll bet." She muttered, displeased. "I'll go and get the keys off Mr. Kirigiri. Try and…I don't know. We'll shift all this stuff, anyway."

Feeling very confused, Hajime picked the magazine back up and raised his eyebrows as he looked inside it.  
_Well, they may be Ultimates_, _but at least they know that they're _normal _boys,_ _to some degree._


	2. Chapter 2: The Dull Days

The time that was being spent in that class was creeping by.

A wildly varied assortment of students were straddling the line between awake and asleep, making mischief in futile attempts to ease their suffering.

A small blonde yawned from the back of the room, smiling devilishly as she produced a straw from deep inside her blazer. She was well-rehearsed in how to tear tiny squares of paper from her maths book almost silently, synchronising the tiny ripping sounds with the clack of the chalk on the board.

Not so silently, a pink haired boy from the front of the classroom yelped and twisted around as he felt something wet ping off the back of his neck, earning the class an indignant glower from Mr. Furuhiro.

Some of the class snickered under their breaths, as the assault continued with not even a token resistance from the victim or the watching bystanders.

The pink haired boy, embarrassed, returned to his sums. He was a mechanic, as indicated by the slightly foul scent of petrol that lingered insistently around him, mixed in with smoke fumes and metal. Although he looked to be- and indeed, very much was- a delinquent, what he lacked in linguistics and creativity, he made up for in a brain that made him a walking calculator, a talking physicist and an oppressed chemist.

Mr. Furuhiro often looked at his work and tutted that he wasn't living up to his full potential. Kazuichi Souda had aced even his hardest equations, and the science teachers had high praise for him.  
"You keep on getting distracted in class." Mr. Furuhiro remarked to him on a monthly basis, when the month's test results were published. "Can you explain to me _why_?"

Kazuichi's two answers were both blonde, but not necessarily simple; for one, a childish little demon lurked at the back of the class. Kazuichi shuddered as he remembered her pigtails- or as he liked to call them, horns. The second issue was the blonde woman next to him. Right next to him. At the front of the class. _Next to him_.

His mind often wandered during class, and his eyes followed suit. If he thought about her luxurious hair, he was usually looking at the silky blonde strands that drifted so gracefully over the back of her chair. If he thought about her legs- and he thought about them _a lot_\- then his eyes weren't far behind in gazing at the porcelain skin.

He would beg for Hiyoko Saionji, a demonic traditional dancer, to be moved to the other side of the planet. On the other hand, the gears of that great big mathematical brain of his spun on a regular basis; how much would Mr. Furuhiro be willing to accept in yen if he moved me onto the same table as Sonia Nevermind?

It probably wouldn't be the biggest loss for him; after all, Sonia Nevermind was literally a princess, and her royal vaults would probably cover that cost a thousand times over when he eventually married her.

His heart fluttered, and he let out a little gasp as he saw her gorgeous green orbs looking right at him…such passion…such ferocity contained within them!_  
_Somewhat reluctantly, Souda tore his gaze from her sharpish and went back over his already-completed sums.

Sighing and adjusting her skirt self-consciously to cover her legs, Sonia tried to pay attention to what was happening on the board. However, Mr. Furuhiro was as bad a teacher as she considered herself to be at maths, and her mind drifted from the sum of '_DR__2__' _and _'ne__0__' _to an assortment of serial killers attacking Souda.

The class droned on for another ten minutes, but the clock hands seemed to be made of lead.

Kazuichi absorbed a lot more spitballs than he wanted to, but was mercifully ignored as Hiyoko exchanged notes with her best friend, a somewhat resigned girl named Mahiru Koizumi.

A hulking mass of muscle sat bolt-upright at the back of the class, diligently working. A stark contrast to the oblivious, snoozing gymnast next to him, and the midget chef poking in wonder at her large bust.

A scarf-donning man seemed content with disregarding the lesson in favour of his hamsters. The girls at the back swapped more notes.

Five minutes to go.

Four. Three. Two. One…

Muffled clanks and bangs were muffled from either side of the Maths classroom, and a general buzz of activity rose in volume, flooding into the hallways. Shadows danced under the gap between the door and the floor, and the class jumped to their feet in perfect unison, stretching out their sore limbs and sloppily piling homework sheets onto their tables.

Mr. Furuhiro scowled at them all.  
"The bell doesn't dismiss you! I do!" he spat, gesturing with his finger for them to sit down.

Sonia Nevermind quickly manoeuvred her chair to obey him, and so did another girl at the back of the class, Mikan Tsumiki. It didn't work out so well, and her foot hooked around the table leg. The midget chef beamed gleefully down at her position, only for Mahiru to bat him away.  
"Mikan! Again?" She gave the nurse a reproachful look. "Are you OK, though?"  
Flushing furiously, Mikan stuttered rapid-fire apologies. The bell cut her off midway through.  
Saionji gave a sigh of relief. "Finally! Saved by the bell! Now we can get out of this dumbass classroom, and we don't have to listen to that _skank _over there blubbering because she's too stupid to move her feet properly."

The small class of nineteen filed out two at a time. Mr. Furuhiro snatched the sheets up, still scowling.

It was Kazuichi's intention to wait for Sonia to leave so that he could talk to her, but to his dismay, she had already walked to the back of the class to speak with the boy with the scarf.

Gundham Tanaka gently dropped his hamsters back into his scarf and coat pockets, Sonia waiting patiently for him to make sure they were settled in properly. Souda fumed silently at the front, making a point of pushing his chair in, and finding other tasks to occupy himself with as Lady and the Tramp made their way down the aisle.

It felt like a wedding aisle, to Souda.  
_Look at the way he's letting her touch his arm. He's obviously bewitched her, somehow…damn him!_

Leaning on his desk, his eyes trailed over them as they flounced past him, with something of a frown in his direction.  
"Goodbye, Mr. Furuhiro!" Sonia chanted, waving at the grouch that was their Maths teacher.

Unsurprisingly, his face softened and he raised his hand in farewell. _Miss Sonia has that kind of effect on people._

Sonia pulled a book out of her messenger bag and passed it to Gundham, shouldering through the masses of exhausted pupils. Kazuichi squinted, desperate to see the book in question, but his fellow students shoved roughly in front, obscuring them from view. They disappeared from view, leaving the mechanic to trail back to his dorm despondently.

Arriving, he sulkily arrived in the corridor of his class and turned into the boy's section. Frustrated, he jabbed the key into the door and wriggled it until he heard the lock click. He burst in, and looked around, instantly picking up the change in the room.

His junk pile, his workbench, and (thankfully) his 'personal' magazines remained untouched. What struck him as strange though, was the _other stuff_. A bass guitar from his 'career' as a musician (the band was currently on an, 'indefinite hiatus'). A cheapo stack of baseball bats and tennis balls, from the time he went to the beach with Leon and played baseball. From carnival prizes to DVDs and used textbooks, half of his junk was in here, instead of the spare room.

He dashed out, and gritted his teeth as a bemused-looking Gundham closed his door hastily.  
"You!" snapped Kazuichi, still seething from his treachery after Maths. "You've jumped dunk- ah, no- you've dumped all my old shit into my room, haven't you?"  
He was met with a glower. "I have not."  
"Have too! Only _you _could pull off something so immature!"  
"Ha! What manner of hypocrisy you preach!" Gundham snorted, locking the door in such a nonchalant manner it made Kazuichi want to scream.  
"Oh, shut up! You totally _have_ put my crap in there."  
"I don't have your key."  
"Don't tell me that you can't get in just because you don't have a key! You totally sent your hamsters up the air vent!"  
"My Four Dark Devas of Destruction would spend no such effort on a meaningless prank, and neither would I." He narrowed his eyes. "Leave, Kazuichi." The taller man turned away haughtily.  
Kazuichi grabbed his shoulder, earning a nip from a hamster.  
"I-I-I want answers! I certainly didn't tip my crap in there!"  
Gundham turned back. "Kazuichi, do you want me to start berating _you _for putting my old cages into my room, then?"  
"Don't change the subject!" Kazuichi started. Then it clicked. "Wait, what did you just say Gundham?"

Gundham sighed theatrically, and opened his door again, holding it wide open for Kazuichi to see a pile of cat beds, animal hutches and bowls stacked higgledy-piggledy along the wall. A small army of

"You…your stuff's been moved from the spare room as well?"  
"Evidently. I want answers." Gundham slammed the door shut and closed his eyes. "I need space to perform my rituals…this _clutter _provides me with an inadequate meditating area."  
"Yeah, fuck off, mate." Kazuichi huffed.

Still bickering, they made their way down to the spare room at the end of the corridor. It was vacant, to their knowledge, and had been used by the boys as an area for them to store all of their unwanted or useless items.

Souda produced a key that he'd had cut, and furiously mumbling, unlocked the door. Gundham reached for the doorknob, but Kazuichi huffed again and kicked the door open.

His mouth dropped open. "The-the room's _clean_!" Gundham sauntered in behind him, just as a baffled face peeped out from behind a corner.

Kazuichi and Gundham stared at the face. It stared back.  
Save for a sticky-up tuft of hair, nothing about the boy stood out. It was a face so normal that it could be considered abnormal.  
"Wh-who are you?" screeched Kazuichi, pointing a finger at the newcomer in _his _storage room.

The boy stepped out, still wearing a t-shirt and jeans. No uniform.  
"My name is Hajime Hinata. I'm new to Hope's Peak Academy."


End file.
